Years ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Maybe Meditation Isn’t for Everybody.”
At that point in my life, I had tried many times to clear my mind and follow my breath, and while I could technically do that for a few minutes at a time, I never felt the peace, serenity, and equanimity that was ostensibly waiting for me.
Fast forward to today, and I see that post for what it was: a naive attempt at self consolation. I look back at the version of myself who wrote that with a mixture of compassion and the “oh you poor sweet summer child” feeling (whatever that’s called).
Somewhere along the timeline (not too long after that initial post, in fact), meditation clicked for me and I was able to see the benefits of a mindfulness practice with silence and stillness at its core. I’m now an experienced meditator - so experienced as to know just how much of a beginner I am. I have a near-daily practice of sitting, I go to the San Francisco Zen Center almost every week, I can hold a half lotus like it’s nobody’s business, and I attend meditation workshops and retreats. I’m currently writing this from the PachaMama eco-village in Costa Rica, where we have nightly meditations with hundreds of practitioners, all in perfect silence together.
I don’t say this to brag (there can be a culture of snobbishness that creeps into meditation sometimes where people can develop a ‘holier than thou’ complex for being so committed to their practice, but I fully believe that there is no right or wrong way to meditate, and that someone who meditates for 2 hours a day is no better or worse than someone who occasionally uses Headspace to help them fall asleep). Rather, my aim is to illuminate just how important meditation has been along my spiritual journey.
I believe that a spiritual journey is the process by which we uncover fundamental truths about ourselves, deepen our awareness of our bodies, unpack the baggage we inherit from our parents/society and lived traumas, and meet the most enlightened versions of ourselves without any masks or fears. A spiritual journey can take many forms, and it can lead to a sense of spiritual fulfillment and contentedness with one’s being on this earth. The journey, I believe, ultimately culminates in self-love: the felt and embodied knowledge that we are all whole and complete as we are.
For over a decade and a half, I was a devout atheist. I had grown up as an orthodox Jew, and shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, I left the faith (though it took me five years to eat pork). I was still culturally Jewish, but I didn’t have a spiritual bone in my body. Then, during the pandemic, I started meditating, more out of curiosity than anything else. As I continued deepening my practice, I started experiencing occasional moments of deep inner peace and a sense of oneness with the universe. Even though I wouldn’t have defined myself as spiritual, I gradually relaxed my own labels and started referring to myself as agnostic. When I lived in Hawaii for a year, I discovered ecstatic dance and started feeling more connected with my body. I learned about breath work and how intentional breathing can induce wildly euphoric sensations in the body and mind. After attending the California Tantra Festival in 2022, I had a full-on somatic awakening in which I truly understood how the supposed separations between my consciousness and the rest of nature are illusory. Throughout all this time, I was exploring the teachings of plant medicines and witnessing the intense and ineffable psycho-spiritual effects they can have on a person. Finally, just a few months ago, my friend Julia asked me “Aaron, do you believe in god?” I took a minute, and said “God dammit, yes I do.” Now, I see myself as a spiritual being. I couldn’t quite tell you exactly how it happened, but I can’t deny that it did.
Along this journey, I’ve sat for hundreds of hours of meditation. Meditation was a gateway for me, and while I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint when and where I first starting gaining traction in my meditation practice, I can say for certain that there was a threshold beyond which it became an integral part of my life. While I now believe that anyone can meditate, I still don’t believe that everyone needs to meditate. I encourage people to try meditation even if they’ve felt stuck with it before, but I also recommend that they find their own tools and techniques along their spiritual journey. That could look like dance, vocal activation, IFS therapy, regular ice baths, tea ceremonies, guided MDMA sessions, and so much more. The journey itself is studded with guideposts that will help each individual along their way, and while the path can be difficult at times, I fully believe that it will eventually lead towards a feeling of self-love, acceptance, inner peace, and the bliss of living fully in the present.
I’m still just at the beginning of my spiritual journey. I know that the journey never truly ends, and that we’re all in a continual process of healing and discovery of our own inner wisdom. I can report that my feeling of self-love has never been greater, and it pours out of me in the love I experience towards others. I feel gratitude, awe, and connectedness with the world and the beings who inhabit it - not all of the time of course, but much more than I did just a few short years ago. That felt sense of tranquility and joyful presence is predicated on the awareness that there is nothing missing from me, that I am completely enough as I am, and that I don’t need anyone’s approval or permission to be worthy of infinite love.
The same is true for all of us.